June 20, 2011

Well, this is disturbing on multiple levels. Jamie Hooker, a 25-year-old woman who suffers from cerebral palsy, claims that former NYU physician Dr. David Magill, 50, drugged her and brought her to a motel room so that he could have sex with her on May 31, 2010. Though she called the police, no charges were filed, but a new civil suit for negligence and malpractice against Magill and NYU’s Langone Medical Center alleges that the doctor “overmedicated [Hooker] intentionally so as to make her compliant to defendant’s demand that she have sexual relations with him.” Magill denies the charges, but did give up his medical license, admitting to “professional misconduct.” Meanwhile, our ever classy top local tabloid calls Hooker “Palsy gal,” leaving our faith in humanity way in the red on this unsettling Monday.

Before Roe, terminating a pregnancy meant confronting a nightmare of quacks and butchers, knitting needles and wire coat hangers. The exceptions were people like Dr. X, “the stars of the underground abortion circuit.”